Cartoon U.

I steal all of my ideas from Mike Lynch, who pointed me to an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the first graduating class of the Center for Cartoon Studies. Located in Vermont, the center offers a two-year, $30,000 degree program whose mission appears to be teaching students to produce literary graphic novels. This emphasis seems a bit different than that of the Joe Kubert School, which has been running successfully for 30 years and takes a very hard-nosed vocational approach to comic art education.

As I commented on Mike's blog, I have some mixed feelings about a program like this. Drawing an analogy with journalism, the best reporters and editors I knew never went to journalism school. They majored in history, political science, English, or even hard science, then used that background to enrich their journalism careers. Some never went to college but had decades of life under their belts. A good editor once told me he'd rather hire kids who know something about the world and teach them journalism than those who know nothing but journalism and teach them about the world. I agree with that sentiment.

Turning to cartoon school, I just wonder if they're missing the point that cartooning isn't technique, it's ideas. Art Spiegelman didn't win a Pulitzer for Maus because he's the best cartoonist ever--he's not--but because he communicated great ideas. I knew a lot of kids in high school and college who were excellent cartoon artists but quickly fizzled out because they had nothing interesting to say about the world. Good cartoonists are smart, curious and well-read--really, all the qualities required of a good writer plus the ability to draw. Surely that description fits some graduates of the Center of Cartoon Studies, but I wonder if anyone there ever emphasized that?

Still, I'm sure these students worked hard and learned some great stuff--just as journalism school students work hard and learn some great stuff--and some will surely go on to achieve tremendous things with their training. It'd be interesting to survey that graduating class in 10 years and find out how their expectations met reality. I suspect some--many?--most??--will discover they're the best unemployed cartoonists they know.